Help on a special kind of wild pheasant.

This is interesting. I got one rooster in SW MN today. When I looked at him, I thought the upper back feathers were darker brown than usual, as well as the chest. He also had some green flecks on the sides of the chest feathers. Sure enough, when I got home, I compared him to my 3 birds from the prior day, still intact, and he is different. He isn't a black melly like you would see at a game farm, but he has some similarities to Joe Hunter's bird above.

20 minutes or so before I got him, a rooster flushed wild. I thought he looked extra dark. It could have just been the lighting, or something in the local gene pool, or he ended up being the one we got. He was a smart boy, and an unbelievable scrapper.

I clocked him quite a ways away on my 3rd shot, and could tell he was winged. It was relatively short wetland grasses and 3-4 inches of fresh snow where he fell. We hustled up there and Honey wanted to keep going. She found him another 60-70 yards up from where I would guess he fell (133 yards total), but after one mouth full of feathers, he flipped, and vanished before our eyes. We both looked all over for over 10 minutes. I stepped down all the snow and grasses by the pile of feathers and 5 to 10 feet in every direction. I did think if he had burrowed in, his scent might finally reach the surface if we waited long enough. The only other option was if he scooted under the snow and out of that area, but I just didn't think he had.

Finally, 3-4 feet from where he was last seen, and where I had stepped down the snow, and where Honey had been a number of times, Honey sniffed him out. He must have been right on the ground and didn't budge with me stepping on him.

Another rodeo ensued, but Honey hog tied him this time. She wasn't messing around. Normally when I grab a bird from her, that's it. But both were still fighting with each other as I held him.

I wrung his neck, and since he was kicking me, I dropped him. After a while, I started to wonder if I had done it completely. Head looked dead, but body was still moving. I picked him up again, and did it in another spot. Dropped him again, and his dead body kicked the ground hard enough to make him pop off the ground.

One smart, tough, mutant, bird.

Oh, and related to another thread, the end of his spurs were worn down to white too. An all in one bird.

Will post comparison photos tomorrow or the next day. Have to get up early again to try to thin out the gene pool.
 
Last edited:
Once in Iowa hunting around Swea City (funny name) a smart one flushed just out of range. He wasn't jet black, but he was the darkest looking wild pheasant I've ever seen. Really neat colors, wish he would've waited another 30 seconds to flush. 4 years ago in Leola, my buddies both shot at a bird that had a lot more white on him than normal. Kind of cream colored head and shoulders. We were a couple hundred yards away and they signaled us to walk over and help look, but we never could find him. On black friday at Cariboo, Randy gets a bunch of black pheasants in. I've always wanted to do it, but I won't go to the game farm when I can chase wild ones, unless a buddy really twists my arm and puts me in a headlock.
 
Bob Peters said:
Once in Iowa hunting around Swea City (funny name) a smart one flushed just out of range. He wasn't jet black, but he was the darkest looking wild pheasant I've ever seen. Really neat colors, wish he would've waited another 30 seconds to flush. 4 years ago in Leola, my buddies both shot at a bird that had a lot more white on him than normal. Kind of cream colored head and shoulders. We were a couple hundred yards away and they signaled us to walk over and help look, but we never could find him. On black friday at Cariboo, Randy gets a bunch of black pheasants in. I've always wanted to do it, but I won't go to the game farm when I can chase wild ones, unless a buddy really twists my arm and puts me in a headlock.
Click to expand...
The pheasants forever groups or boyscouts sometimes do youth hunts for youth season and they buy and plant birds on the public lands, often mix in a few black ones for that special touch
 
I think this is the closest I've come to a Kansas bird. I've deduced that he probably migrated up from Wichita when the wheat stubble went bad and wanted to get some of that delicious Iowa corn. I realize biologists have mentioned a pheasant has a small home range and doesn't migrate. That said, it'd be nothing for a blue back to fly a few hundred miles. He flushed like a rocket from the horsetail with Skye hot on his trail, fastest bird I've ever seen. To this day I still can't believe my move mount and shoot was quick enough to make the shot, I shoulda bought a lottery ticket that day. I'm thinking he was a quarter strain bird, but surely not a blue blood blue back.
20201126_155906.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top